Rhodes College stars Lauren Avant and Symone Daniels showed Spalding University what Memphis home cooking is all about Friday night, barbecuing the Golden Eagles 83-59 in the opening round of the NCAA Division 3 basketball tournament at Mallory Gym.

Avant, the Southern Athletic Association Player of the Year, was a couple of missed free throws of her second straight 30-point game. The senior, who started her college career at Tennessee, finished with 29 points on 11-of-16 shooting, six rebounds and five assists. Daniels, a sophomore from St. Benedict, was SAA Newcomer of the Year after transferring from Drake. After a stretch of several games with foul trouble, she was on the court for 28 minutes and scored 20 points, hitting four of Rhodes’ 11 3-pointers. She also had seven rebounds.

“When Symone has it going, we’re much better all over the floor,” said Avant, will likely play her final home game at 6 p.m. Saturday when the Lynx (25-3) go up against Texas-Tyler (26-3) in a second-round game. Like the Lynx, the Patriots won their 13th straight Friday, rolling past Maryville (Tenn.) 67-43.

The Lynx couldn’t shake Spalding (16-11) until Daniels hit the Lynx first 3-pointer to make it 19-15 midway through the first half. By the break, it was 53-26.

“One of those things, if we didn’t have halftime we might have hit 100.” said Rhodes’ Matt Dean, the SAA coach of the year. “We’re 8-9 deep right now and everyone is stepping her game up.”

Daniels said it’s been an adjustment coming to Division 3. “In the Missouri Valley Conference, I was having to work around the huge girls everywhere we played. Here, I’m ‘overaggressive’ and I’m still learning how to play on this scale. But tonight I hit a couple of shots and I was able to get comfortable.”

Spalding coach Charlie Just, whose team started 1-7, said, “That’s obviously an athletically gifted team. We had to give up something, and when they start hitting shots like that, not too many teams will be able to beat them.”

Dy’nelle Todman added nine points, while Natalie Goodrum and sub Blaire Smith chipped in eight apiece for the win as Rhodes shot 52.5 percent from the floor despite a 1-for-9 run to start the second half. Goodrum and Todman each added a pair of 3-pointers, as the Lynx were 11-of-20 from the arc after going 14-of-32 in the conference championship Sunday. Bailey Kramer (Briarcrest) had eight rebounds.

Kerstin Hayes finished her career with 17 points, including four second-half 3-pointers, for Spalding while Jessica Guy added 12 points and 10 boards.